Good News, Bad News

Gently Extracted from the Headlines

Highlights:

• "Far from being better informed, heavy newswatchers can become miscalibrated . . . and sometimes they part company with reality altogether."


• "Although there is no evidence that members of individualist cultures are more altruistic overall, they appear to be more altruistic, on average, toward strangers. Although growing prosperity and individualism may bring some societal costs, an inevitable increase in selfishness does not seem to be among them."


• "The strategy of growing the economy — basically trying to create new wealth — to boost the well-being of their underprivileged citizens is ineffective. A much better approach, argues O'Neill, would be to focus on redistributing their existing wealth more equitably."


• "Striving to be less wrong — rather than more right — could be a beneficial way to construe our aims across a variety of contexts, whether it's a marital dispute or a business decision. . . . if I begin from the assumption that I'm fallible and striving to be less wrong, a challenge may not feel so threatening."

Quoted from the articles below in the order they are shared.

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From The Guardian:

The media exaggerates negative news. This distortion has consequences

Whether or not the world really is getting worse, the nature of news will interact with the nature of cognition to make us think that it is.

News is about things that happen, not things that don’t happen. We never see a journalist saying to the camera, “I’m reporting live from a country where a war has not broken out”— or a city that has not been bombed, or a school that has not been shot up. . . .

The nature of news is likely to distort people’s view of the world because of a mental bug that the psychologists Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman called the Availability heuristic: people estimate the probability of an event or the frequency of a kind of thing by the ease with which instances come to mind. In many walks of life this is a serviceable rule of thumb. But whenever a memory turns up high in the result list of the mind’s search engine for reasons other than frequency—because it is recent, vivid, gory, distinctive, or upsetting—people will overestimate how likely it is in the world. . . .

The consequences of negative news are themselves negative. Far from being better informed, heavy newswatchers can become miscalibrated. They worry more about crime, even when rates are falling, and sometimes they part company with reality altogether . . .

Consumers of negative news, not surprisingly, become glum: a recent literature review cited “misperception of risk, anxiety, lower mood levels, learned helplessness, contempt and hostility towards others, desensitization, and in some cases, ... complete avoidance of the news.” . . .

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From NPR:

Could A More Individualistic World Also Be A More Altruistic One?

Wealth, and the individualism that follows, are often conflated with selfishness. This is, in part, because individualism's inverse — collectivism — emphasizes close social ties and an interconnected rather than independent view of the self.

But equating individualism, and the wealth that promotes it, with selfishness may be a mistake. As evidenced, the world's wealthiest and most individualistic countries also happen to be some of the most altruistic. . . .

The key to understanding the link between individualism and generosity may be that the World Giving Index measures generosity for strangers. Members of collectivist cultures do very much value generosity and giving — but primarily toward family and members of other close-knit groups. . . . A focus on group bonds requires that members of collectivist cultures draw distinctions between group members whose welfare, goals, and identities are deeply interdependent — and everyone else. And less value is placed on the welfare of everyone else. . . .

In individualist cultures, higher relational mobility means that anyone unfamiliar could "one day become a friend," as cultural psychologist Yulia Chentsova-Dutton, a colleague of mine at Georgetown, put it to me. Among collectivist cultures, it is more likely to be assumed that a stranger will stay a stranger.

These psychological phenomena may help to explain why, although there is no evidence that members of individualist cultures are more altruistic overall, they appear to be more altruistic, on average, toward strangers. Although growing prosperity and individualism may bring some societal costs, an inevitable increase in selfishness does not seem to be among them.

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Also from NPR:

If We Bring The Good Life To All, Will We Destroy The Planet?

Our blog often features stories about efforts to improve life for this planet's 7 billion inhabitants: how to make sure everyone has access to clean water and power, medical care to stay healthy, enough income to feed their kids, education for the children so they can fulfill their potential.

But a new study in the journal Nature Sustainability poses a question not often considered: If we were to succeed in providing all this, what would be the cost to the environment? . . .

Says O'Neill, "generally the countries that do well on the social indicators do so by consuming resources at a level that could not be extended to all people on the planet." These include Germany, the Netherlands and Austria. "And the countries that do well on the environmental indicators — in other words, that are consuming resources at a sustainable level — don't do well on the social indicators." Examples include Malawi, Yemen and the Philippines.

There are also five countries that do damage above all seven of the environmental boundaries even as they fail to achieve all 11 social indicators. This includes the United States, which misses the mark when it comes to income equality and employment. . . .

Only one country comes even close to delivering the good life in a sustainable way: Vietnam . . .

"And what we find is that it follows a curve of diminishing returns — as you use more resources you get less social bang for your buck," says O'Neill. "So there's a turning point after which additional resource use contributes very little to social performance." Wealthy industrialized nations such as the United States, the United Kingdom and Canada have reached that point, says O'Neill. "As we increase our resource use, we get almost no increase in human well-being from that."

And this means for these countries the strategy of growing the economy — basically trying to create new wealth — to boost the well-being of their underprivileged citizens is ineffective. A much better approach, argues O'Neill, would be to focus on redistributing their existing wealth more equitably.

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And NPR also gets the final word:

A New Goal: Aim To Be Less Wrong

At a conference last week, I received an interesting piece of advice:

"Assume you are wrong."

The advice came from Brian Nosek, a fellow psychology professor and the executive director of the Center for Open Science. Nosek wasn't objecting to any particular claim I'd made — he was offering a strategy for pursuing better science, and for encouraging others to do the same. . . .

Assuming you are right might be a motivating force, sustaining the enormous effort that conducting scientific work requires. But it also makes it easy to construe criticisms as personal attacks, and for scientific arguments to devolve into personal battles. Beginning, instead, from the assumption you are wrong, a criticism is easier to construe as a helpful pointer, a constructive suggestion for how to be less wrong — a goal that your critic presumably shares. . . .

I like Nosek's suggestion because it builds in epistemic humility ("there are things I do not know!") along with a sense that we can do better ("there are things I do not know yet!"). It also builds in a sense of community — we're all in the same boat when it comes to falling short of getting things right. Perhaps the focus on a shared goal — our goal as scientists and humans of being less wrong — can help compensate for any harms in scientific motivation or communication.

I also like Nosek's advice because it isn't restricted to science. Striving to be less wrong — rather than more right — could be a beneficial way to construe our aims across a variety of contexts, whether it's a marital dispute or a business decision. I may be wrong about who did the dishes last night, or about which stock is the best investment; if I begin from the assumption that I'm fallible and striving to be less wrong, a challenge may not feel so threatening.